


The Shirt

by SentimentalDefect



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Crack, Gen, Humor, M/M, The Purple Shirt of Sex, UST, feel it!, feel the sexual tension, john is awkward, sherlock is a dork, sherlock is not
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-01
Updated: 2014-07-01
Packaged: 2018-02-06 23:52:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1877184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SentimentalDefect/pseuds/SentimentalDefect
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"John I've worn this shirt a thousand times, why on earth does it suddenly bother you that I wear this particular shirt?"  John sighed. "It's not the shirt, Sherlock, it's the looks you get when you wear it."  John confronts our favorite detective about a certain Purple Shirt.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Shirt

**Author's Note:**

> Humor isn't typically my area, but this just seemed too good to pass up. *grins guiltily*. I mean really, we can never over analyze something as glorious as Benedict in that purple shirt, so it seems rude not to contribute to these delicious imaginings.

John looked up from over his newspaper for the tenth time that morning, inspecting Sherlock with an almost uncanny scrutiny. His flatmate stood in front of the mirror, adjusting his shirt yet again, and John was beginning to feel a bit like he was rooming with a teenage girl rather than a thirty-something man. Sherlock had been standing in front of that damn mirror (as he did nearly every morning) for a solid ten-minutes, in that damn shirt, and John was forcing himself to concentrate on re-reading this morning's headline for a third time. There was just something about that shirt, which,(although he would never admit it) was simply inhumanely sexy when worn by a certain detective. The rich color framed perfectly against that porcelain skin, collarbones peaking out in a manner that was practically obscene. Yet beyond the physical appeal of the shirt itself, the tiny mannerisms of its wearer when he was getting ready- a flick of the wrist here, a ruffling of the hair there, all combined into a completely un-earthly appeal which John had yet to find a way to resist. So here he sat, mouth slightly open and practically drooling in lust to himself, trying unsuccessfully to just read the paper and appear normal. He managed to choke down a few sips of coffee, a quick glance at the second page, before being interrupted by a small scrutinizing noise from across the room. Sherlock turned ever-so-slightly to the left, inspecting himself from that angle, and when the inspection was suddenly accompanied by a faint furrowing of the brow, the god-like face beneath letting out the smallest whisper of a huff, John could stand it no more.

"No. Just- can't you.. please just not do that?"

Sherlock continued to inspect himself, eyes not moving from their initial target. "Do what?"

"That... thing." John waved unhelpfully at Sherlock's arm. "You know, the thing you do with the cheekbones and the prissy little sleeve flicks and the... eyebrow.. thing."

Sherlock's eyes wandered to meet John's in the mirror, clearly disgusted with John's vague and unhelpful observation. "Eyebrow thing?"

"Yes, it's where you make the face and then do a bit with your eyebrows where you go and sort of... furrow them together..."

Sherlock huffed, this time more loudly, gaze now honing in on his own face, scrutinizing it rather irritably. "You always talk about this 'face'-" He ran a hand across the pale skin, completely oblivious to what John was talking about. "What exactly is it?" His tone was suddenly very similar to when he had discussed the confusion of the point of a hat with two fronts. " And why does it bother you so much? Honestly John, you care entirely too much about what other people think of me all the time.."

John slammed down his paper, hurt. "This isn't about other people, it's just about me!"

Sherlock shrugged. "Well then don't let it bother you."

Semi-silence settled over the flat once more, John angrily resuming his "reading" of the paper, at least until a few moments later when he looked up to find Sherlock adjusting the sleeves of the shirt.

"Oh for the love of- " John felt a fresh wave of exasperation crash over him "Not that shirt."

"What's wrong with this shirt?" Sherlock snapped.

"It's..." John paused, fishing for the right words. Too attractive? Too flashy? Too..gay? All true in some degree, perhaps, but not what he was trying to say.

Sherlock's agitation was growing more apparent. "John I've worn this shirt a thousand times, why on earth does it suddenly bother you that I wear this particular shirt?"

John sighed. "It's not the shirt, Sherlock, it's the looks you get when you wear it."

Sherlock snorted. "Evidently you've never seen the looks you get when you wear that jumper with the deer on it..."

"What looks? That's my favorite jumper!"

Sherlock closed his eyes very slowly, as though the fact that he had to explain his previous statement was a source of physical torment. "It has deer on it, John. Deer. If you wish to attract retired women into your bed I'm sure Mrs. Hudson could set you up with someone from her bingo group-"

John cut him off. "Alright yes I get it, I get it." He snapped the paper back in front of his eyes, childishly hiding behind the large publication to hide any hint of embarrassment. Sherlock returned to cuffing his shirt, making a great show of ignoring John's direction. This was short lived, however, because finally curiosity got the better of him and he knew he had to ask- he was just no good at unresolved matters.

"So what is it then?"

John looked up, feigning a look of innocent obliviousness. "'Bout what?"

"This shirt!" Sherlock snapped, turning back to the mirror and staring at the plum fabric, his deduction mode kicking into-overdrive. "Why don't you want me to wear it?"

"You..." John struggled once more for the words which would manage to convay the point without leading to any unwilling proclamations."You attract rather a lot of attention. In it."

Sherlock rolled his eyes. "Obviously I attract attention. That's what happens when you run round the streets wielding a gun, isn't it?"

"No it's not that. It's..." John sighed. "It's because it's purple."

"Purple?"

"Yes."

"Why is that a problem?"

John groaned: why was this so hard? "Okay it's not just the fact that it's purple. It's just that it's all.. tight."

"Tight." Sherlock repeated the word with nothing if not disbelief. All this fuss, and John didn't like that his shirt was too tight?

"Yes, tight!"

Sherlock paused, musing over this sudden revelation before smirking. "Are you implying that it is too sexual?"

John looked hurriedly back at his paper, shrugging in what he clearly thought was a nonchalant fashion. "Something like that."

"Hmph."

John snuck another peek from over the paper. "Where did you get that shirt anyway?" He asked cooly, working at something which resembled indifference. "You don't exactly seem like the shopping type."

"Mycroft." Sherlock answered lazily, now plucking a rubix cube off the mantle and plopping down into his customary chair across from John. "Only gift he's ever given me that wasn't returned or burned upon reception."

John nodded. "That's thoughtful. Must've been expensive."

Sherlock tilted his head at his puzzle, frowning. "More of a compensation prize than a gift."

"Compensation for what?"

He shrugged. "Oh nothing. Mycroft sorted it all out. There's rather a lot of grey area when it comes to prostitution, wouldn't you say?" He placed the cube (now finished) onto the floor, stretching across the table toward to tea-tray. "Biscuit?"

John coughed, inhaling a generous amount of coffee and then promptly spraying it across his lap in shock. "You...! What... Prostitution?"

Sherlock ignored him, selecting a biscuit from the bottom of the stack before resuming John's discarded paper.

"How do you know anything about prostitution?"

Sherlock smirked, eyes locking onto John's with the faintest trace of flirtation. "By avoiding deer-printed jumpers, I imagine." His eyes flashed once at John, before resuming their scan of the news, and that was the last which was said about that shirt for quite some time.


End file.
